Page 86 of Symphony of Salvation

“I’m parked around front. I don’t have a key to the rear entrance.”

A brisk wind fluttered and lifted my hair, tickling my cheeks with its icy fingers. I turned my back on it as I considered what to do.

Niles came to the rescue. “Care to join me? You saw the state of the library. I’m literally buried under a score of scores.”

Chuckling, I aimed for the car, each step lighter than the last until the soles of my shoes, like my spirit, floated on air. “I’m on my way.”

***

“It’s daunting, but if we can make a dent, it’s something.” Niles handed me a squat stool as he stood outside the closet-sized library in the back section of the music room. Its contents spilled from inside, landing in neat, seemingly random piles of folders containing full symphonies, solos, duets, concertos, and everything in between.

“I’ve started arranging them in alphabetical order by composer.” He pointed from stack to stack. “A’s. Haven’t found many of those yet. B’s. We’ve got Bach, Beethoven, Bernstein, Bennett, Bizet, Brahms, Byrd, etcetera, and so forth. C’s, D’s, no E’s, F’s over here, G’s—”

“Niles.”

He glanced up, adorably frazzled.

“I learned the alphabet when I was yay high.” I indicated with a hand.

“Right.” He blew a chunk of stray hair from his face and propped his hands on his hips. “Not rocket science, I guess.” He wore a buttoned shirt with rolled sleeves—as was his norm—paired with dark jeans and a leather belt. His facial hair was growing in again, and I couldn’t help staring at the cut angle of his covered jaw. It was hard to believe he’d been in my bed less than seventy-two hours ago.

When Niles lifted his gaze from the mountain of files and our eyes locked, I immediately diverted my attention to the room behind him. “Where do you want me to start?”

Adopting a smug tone and motioning with a flourish, he said, “Please, join me in the closet. I think you’ll find it rather comfortable and… familiar.”

I deadpanned. “You’re not funny.”

He shrugged and smirked. “Too on the nose?”

“Do you want to do this yourself?”

My mock irritation didn’t fool Niles. He cocked a brow. “It took you two days to make that phone call, Mr. Maestro. Are you leaving already?”

“No. Constance would kill me.” I nodded at thecloset. “Lead the way.”

We squished into the tiny room and tackled the piles of music accumulated on the floor. With so many teens in and out, removing pieces and parts from the shelves and not replacing them in the right spot when they were done, it meant not only were the files out of order but an abundance of stray sheet music belonging to those scores had been crammed into every nook and cranny available. Upon opening a few compositions and finding instrument sections from other pieces of music within, I realized the truth of Niles’s original statement.

Daunting.

We worked in companionable silence for the first twenty minutes, discussions limited to the task at hand. If nothing more, I was happy to be in his presence again. I couldn’t read Niles’s mind, but I got the sense it would be up to me to break the ice where our private affairs were concerned.

Except I didn’t know how.

A thousand conversation entry points came and went. Should I dive into the thick of it or tiptoe cautiously around, inching ever closer if he proved agreeable? Christmas Eve and morningplayed out over and over as I grasped at straws, unsure how to begin. Clouds of embarrassment and shame stuffed up the room and elevated my internal temperature until I shed my sweater vest and rolled my sleeves like Niles always did. If I’d worn a tie, I would be obsessively touching and rearranging it.

I caught him watching from the corner of his eye and eventually sputtered the first thing that came to mind. “Where did you learn sign language?”

He glanced up from the score he was fixing, wisps of wheat-colored hair brushing his temples and dancing along his cheeks. The golden sunsets of his eyes lit me up, further warming the room. He studied me for a moment before resuming his task.

“Every year in elementary school, we got to choose what they called an elective. Not course-covered material, but a fun little extra like baking, knitting, or woodwork. We attended our elective for an hour every other Friday. I chose sign language, enthralled by learning to speak with my hands. A few of my friends chose it as well, and we quickly discovered its nefarious benefits. We could talk to one another in class while the teacher wasn’t looking. Thought ourselves truly devious when we discovered this workaround. We selected it every year for three or four years and became quite proficient.”

I chuckled.

“I borrowed books on the subject from the school library and taught myself as much as I could, progressing beyond my friends’ abilities. Kids are sponges, and I absorbed it easily. Of course, it was a childhood fascination. It entertained me from about age eight or nine to thirteen. Once we got to high school, we forgot all about it.

“In uni, I was required to pick a few general interest courses. When scanning options, I came across an ASL class. I only took the one, and intro-level at that, but it came back to mesurprisingly fast, like it had been stored in my memory, waiting for use. It needed dusting off, but my recall proved profound.”

“So you haven’t used it since university?”

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